They Say It's Biblical. I Say It's A Lie.

What Conservative Christiantiy Calls Truth--and Why We Must Push Back.

How We Got Here.

Theological progressives have done a poor job pushing back against fundamentalist conservatives on topics like Israel, so-called end-time theology, immigration, abortion, and biblical interpretation period. White evangelical voices dominate these conversations—especially in many Black Christian spaces.

I refuse to cede “a high view of scripture” to conservatives. It does not belong to them. Theological progressives like myself hold Scripture in high regard also—not because we read it literally, but because we read it seriously. Seriously enough to study its languages, wrestle with its contradictions, honor its context, challenge its abuses, and trust that the Spirit still speaks through its pages.

It’s time—long past time—to stop letting conservatives dominate the mic. They’ve built the platforms, shaped the narratives, and trained a generation to read the Bible through their lens. Progressives have been far too quiet.

We didn't notice when 'Christian nationalism' went from a label many religious conservatives rejected to a badge many wear proudly. We didn't track how they moved from 'we just want religious freedom' to 'we want to reconstruct government according to biblical law.' We didn't see how they weaponized our own biblical language—'chosen nation,' 'biblical worldview,' 'God's will'—to justify the very systems of oppression that the prophets condemned.

I confess to underestimating just how their influence was reshaping the landscape of American Christianity. Maybe I didn’t see it clearly because, like many boomers from conservative southern Protestant backgrounds, I grew up on a diet of white Christian programming —daytime broadcasts of Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker on the PTL Club, and Billy Graham Crusades aired from packed arenas. It all felt earnest, benign even. But beneath the music and the altar calls was a theology that laid the groundwork for something more organized, more political, and more dangerous than I imagined. I began noticing the shift in two key moments. First, during drives from Nashville to Atlanta in the early 2000s while teaching at Spelman College in Atlanta. When public radio faded, I scanned the dial and found station after station of Christian radio: angry hosts, apocalyptic predictions, call-ins steeped in fear, nationalism, and bad theology. I dismissed it as fringe. But it wasn’t fringe. It was infrastructure.

Second, in 2018, I attended a conference billed as a gathering for crucial conversations on faith and Scripture. It turned out to be something else. I sat on a panel with a new generation of Black scholars trained at white evangelical seminaries. They spoke fluently about apologetics, inerrancy, and the "high view" of Scripture, posing questions like "Can the Bible be trusted?" as if there was only one answer. The audience—students from surrounding evangelical schools—cheered each orthodox declaration and grew quiet at every critical reflection. It wasn’t a conversation. It was a coliseum. A proving ground. These young scholars had been trained to challenge us—Black theologians from progressive institutions—and they were ready.

What We Gave Up.

I can name at least four (maybe five) reasons why so many of us—Black and Christian, though not only—feel disoriented, outmatched, and are wondering these days how mainline religion ended up on the margins.

First: We lost the public theological imagination. Not the Bible itself, but the broader vision of the world we believe God calls us to build. While white evangelicalism flooded the airwaves decades ago with a narrow, exclusionary vision, we failed to offer a public counter-narrative—one that was more just, more generous, more sustainable, more human. We failed to do what King once did: draw on Scripture to conjure a vision so compelling it stirred hearts and reshaped public discourse. Think of his dream: "I have a dream that one day... little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." That was biblical vision, made public and irresistible. Instead, we let conservatives hammer the airwaves with a vision of a world where men rule and women submit, where queerness is condemned, where whiteness is normalized, and where immigrants and the poor are cast as threats rather than neighbors. We gave up ground we never should have ceded.

Second: we abandoned, many of us, our deep affiliation with the Black church. To be clear, the Black church has deserved critique—for its theological blind spots, abuses, and patriarchy. But in our rush to critique, we took our eyes off the larger enemy: heteropatriarchal white supremacy and its advance through white nationalist evangelicalism. While we focused on black church drama, they were seducing the Black church.

Third: too many of our students—graduates of progressive seminaries who read James Cone, Delores Williams, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Katie Cannon, and Howard Thurman—entered pulpits where that formation was stifled. Some were met with congregational suspicion. Others bent under denominational pressure. Still others were pulled into partnerships funded by conservative theology. They were taught to speak prophetically, but learned to survive by staying quiet.

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Fourth: the Black church hasn’t just been targeted. It has, at times, been complicit. Conservative white evangelical institutions knew how to build influence. They branded their theology with style: red-letter Bibles, glossy devotionals, bestselling books, worship music heavy on feeling but light on content. They filled arenas with charismatic Christian personalities—men and women—whose stage presence and media empires masked deeply conservative theology. Their messages repackaged patriarchy as purpose and submission as virtue. Black Christians, especially Black women, bought the books, downloaded the devotionals, and filled arenas to hear white women evangelists promote "biblical womanhood"—a theology that preached traditional gender roles, submission to male authority, and a woman’s highest calling as marriage and motherhood. The tone was feisty, even funny at times, but the message was submission wrapped in rhinestones. They also followed Black women evangelists whose dramatic stage antics—ripping off sheets, losing hair pieces on stage, declaring they were Christians who "just happen to be Black"—masked deep alignment with conservative funders and ideologies. What looked like power was often performance, carefully curated to keep white evangelical dollars flowing. It felt empowering—but the freedom it offered was tightly controlled.

And then there are the churches—multiracial, suburban, well-funded—designed to make everyone feel welcome, as long as no one talks about injustice. Where BLM is taboo, colorblindness is virtue, the music praise without lament, and the US flag sits on the pulpit. Coffee in the sanctuary, jeans-wearing pastors known by their first names. Black and Brown members are often just happy to be there—grateful for the excellence, the nursery and marriage programs, the sense of belonging. But beneath the surface is a theology that avoids discomfort and polishes over structural sin.

What We Must Reclaim

So where do we go from here?

We reclaim what we gave up. Not just Scripture, but the right to interpret it faithfully and boldly. We do this not by mimicking those who weaponize the Bible, but by returning to the deep wells of our own traditions—Black, womanist, liberationist, prophetic.

We make our scholarship speak. Not just in classrooms, but in churches, online, in public discourse. We show up. We listen. We speak to what people care about. Even when their concerns have been shaped by white supremacist theology, we start with respect. Then we offer something better. We teach the difference between formation and control. We read Scripture with reverence—and with courage. We expose interpretations that bind Black, Brown, and poor people to systems that do not serve them.

That’s why I came to Substack. I love working in the academy. But I needed a way to speak beyond the academy. A platform for accessible, public theology. This is one way I do the work. I hope you’ll join me.

Because I will not cede this ground. I will not surrender the Bible, the witness of the prophets, or the liberating message of the gospel to white evangelicals—whether conservative or nationalist. I will not cede the Black church, or its legacy of resistance, faith, and fire. I will not let them define God, claim Christianity, or dictate what Scripture means for our people. Not without a response. Not without a fight.